Basic things that can be done to start to combat digital ad fraud.

1. Five Tips for Fighting
Digital Ad Fraud
Dr. Augustine Fou
http://linkd.in/augustinefou
acfou @mktsci .com
February 2014
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Augustine Fou

2. 1. Know Your Ad Placements
Insist your media agency provides
you a list of placements – page
URLs of where your ads were
shown. If they say they can’t (or
don’t have that data), switch to
another media partner.
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Augustine Fou

3. 2. Look for Unusual CTRs
If click through rates look too
good to be true, they probably are
too good to be true. Look for
outliers and anomalies and
compare to industry benchmarks.
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Augustine Fou

4. 3. Cross Check with Analytics
When real human users click
through on a search ad (or even a
display ad) they tend to stick
around to read what they are
looking for; if time on page is 1
second, something is wrong – or at
least it won’t lead to any ROI.
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Augustine Fou

5. 4. Focus on The Right Reach
More reach is not always better; sometimes
in seeking greater reach advertisers place
ads on far-flung, no-name sites via ad
networks. That is where the fraud comes in
– and the quality of the traffic/users from
those sites is zero. Focus on reputable sites
even if the reach is lower, the quality will
be better and therefore the ROI as well.
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Augustine Fou

6. 5. Measure Actions Not Traffic
If your metrics and goals are based on
traffic, then there is the tendency to get
more traffic and lower cost – that’s
when the poor quality traffic from “long
tail” sites come in. If you focus on real
actions that real human users would
take, then you avoid the trap of bad
metrics.
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Augustine Fou

7. 6. Advanced Options
Once you have done all of the above,
then you can move on to more
advanced, technical options – this
would include good guys like
WhiteOps, Spider.io, and other
advanced techniques for detecting and
mitigating more sophisticated ad fraud.
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Augustine Fou

8. Motive and
Opportunity
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Augustine Fou

9. Motive
“Highly Lucrative, Profitable
The aggregate ad revenue for the
sample of 596 sites was an
estimated $56.7 million for Q3 of
2013, projecting out to $226.7
million dollars annually, with
average profit margins of 83%,
ranging from 80% to as high as
94%.”
Source: Digital Citizens Alliance Study,
Feb 2014
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Augustine Fou

10. Opportunity
As a greater proportion
of ads are bought and
sold automatically and
by algorithm through ad
exchanges, it has
become far easier for
bad guys to “sell” fake
traffic and impression
inventory to
unsuspecting,
mainstream brand
advertisers.
Source: Digital Citizens
Alliance Study, Feb 2014
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Augustine Fou

11. Humans Not
Required
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Augustine Fou

12. Worldwide Bot Traffic
51% suspicious
24-29% confirmed bot
Source: Solve Media via Marketing Charts September 12, 2013
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Source: Solve Media Dec 31 2013
Augustine Fou

13. Algo-Generated Sites
Source: more screen captures
http://picturesandbox.com/screengrab/grouped.php
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Augustine Fou

14. Algo-Generated Pages
Characteristics
• Auto-generated by bots,
stuffed with search keywords
• To attract organic search traffic
• Not human readable (low
instance of natural phrases)
• Stuffed with affiliate links and
display ads
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Augustine Fou

15. Bad Guys Put Up Sites
site = analyzecanceradvice .com
site = missomoms.com
19 blocked ads on page
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Augustine Fou

16. Load Tons of Ads
http://modernbab y.com/
http://interiorcom plex.com/
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Augustine Fou

17. Load Pages with Bots
Source: Google Digital Attack Map
Source: Wired
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Augustine Fou

18. Bots Type Search Term
healthsiteproduc tionalways.com
buy eye cream online
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Augustine Fou

19. Bots Click Search Ad
Olay.com ad
in #1 position
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Augustine Fou

20. Ad Fraud Detection
and Mitigation
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Augustine Fou

21. Ad Fraud Forensics Process
Preliminary Scan
Sizing of
ad fraud
Forensic Analysis
Maintenance
• Technology Tools
• Statistical analysis
• Budget shifts
• Further optimization
Implementation
FREE
$$$
Preliminary analysis of
paid campaigns and
analytics to determine
magnitude of the ad
fraud impacting client.
Creating recommended
list of changes,
including list of sites to
exclude in each ad
channel.
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$
Subscribe to triangulated,
cross-industry database of
“ad fraud offenders” to
continuously update
blacklists and whitelists.
Augustine Fou

22. Dr. Augustine Fou – Digital Forensics
“I advise clients on optimizing
advertising across all channels. Using
advanced technical forensic techniques
and custom tchnology tools, we detect
and mitigate ad fraud and waste.”
FORMER CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, HCG (OMNICOM)
MCKINSEY CONSULTANT
CLIENT SIDE / AGENCY SIDE EXPERIENCE
PROFESSOR AND COLUMNIST
ENTREPRENEUR / SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
PHD MATERIALS SCIENCE (MIT '95) AT AGE 23
ClickZ Articles: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-clickz
Slideshares: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-slideshares
LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/augustinefou
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@acfou
Augustine Fou

23. Related Articles
Digital Ad Fraud Briefing
By: Augustine Fou December 2013
Fake YouTube Videos
By: Augustine Fou, December 2013
How Display Fraud Works
By: Augustine Fou, May 2013
Motive and Opportunity for Ad Fraud
By: Augustine Fou, February 2014
How Click Fraud Works
By: Augustine Fou, November 2013
Fake Facebook Profiles
By: Augustine Fou, Dec 2013
The Magnitude of Digital Ad Fraud
By: Augustine Fou, November 2013
Fake Twitter Accounts
By: Augustine Fou, August 2013
ROI Case for Solving Ad Fraud
By: Augustine Fou January 2014
Display Fraud 101 (video)
By: Augustine Fou, Feb 2014
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Augustine Fou